Judging from the comments I see here, David Hale’s been clearly missed as a beat writer for Georgia athletics since he took himself off to cover the Phillies. As a reader service, I thought I’d let you know he’s back covering college ball again. Unfortunately for us, it’s Florida State athletics that he’ll be reporting. For ESPN.

In terms of pure reporting Seth is fine. But my general impression is that Seth goes out of his way to show he is “unbiased”, doing so by being overly critical or taking veiled shots at the program. Hale could be critical but had more tact in his approach. It felt as if Hale had more knowledge and insight into the game itself. As someone said, Seth seems to just repeats the facts, but Hale offered actual analysis. Just my perceptions.

I don’t know if dislike is a fair term of how I feel about him. I guess disappointed is more appropriate. It’s like the feeling you’d get if you were accustomed to eating a Vortex burger every day for lunch and then had to start settling for McDonald’s instead.

Don’t dislike Seth, just don’t feel he puts in the same level of effort as David did. Could count on David to come up with some nice pick ups that few others got, where Seth seems to retread stories often. Just me maybe.

It could be that he doesn’t review the movies or bring you up to date on “Lost” like David did. Perhaps he has more “in” people in Tallahassee than he did at UGA.

Looks like Jimbo is waiting this one out and why not; he has the rep stating that he didn’t hurt the cop ( why is he going, or not, to anger management if nothing happened between him and the cop) , so why not drop that part: then he has two readings on the alky meter. The first one said .02 if I’m not mistaken. Why were they measuring alcohol in this guy if he was innocent to begin with? So deny, deny, deny until it goes away. I see you brought the LSU method of dealing with discipline with you, Jimbo.

Emerson does a serviceable job. He writes decent articles and puts out a decent amount of stuff.

Hale did so much more. He wrote interesting articles along with the usual reporter stuff. He always had that section at the bottom where he talked about LOST and other TV shows and whatever else happened to catch his fancy. He even talked about his progress at ‘Polly’s’ doing their 100 beers drinking contest (not all at once), which I’ve always wanted to do. He was always entertaining.

That’s why I enjoy this blog so much. It’s not always the normal, expected stuff. Sometimes you get something different presented in a different way. Also, you curse Senator, which I always enjoy.

I think that’s what made Hale more enjoyable to me. I believe he recognized that ultimately his role was to get information out to the fans and he didn’t shy away from recognizing fan blogs and whatnot if they brought up valid, logical discussion.

As was stated above, Emerson goes out of his to prove how unbiased he is – he tends to forget what audience he’s catering to. I’m not necessarily advocating nothing but roses and sunshine mind you.

I did have an exchange with Emerson a few months back on one of his live chats and my question revolved around why he thought that the NFL-ization of college football’s postseason was a good thing since most college football fans love the things that make college football different from the NFL. His response was simply “because it’s more satisfying”. I found that smugness to really turn me off on him and realize that he doesn’t really get his audience.

I’ll answer for him…you can love college football for being different from the NFL and still want to expand the college playoff from 2 teams to 4 teams. Adding 2 teams isn’t exactly NFL-izing the playoffs.

Did you have the same fears and worries in 1998 when they implemented the playoff?

I thought that Emerson’s articles as to the most valuable players in the coming year were great and a differing way to look at personnel and their value while playing on the team. He included the kicker, one player who had not arrived yet and a couple other surprises that were well researched and reported. He has great (and accurate) people in the UGA know and works with all the writers. He writes good and interesting articles about players. The “retread” label fits all writers from time to time because they are writing about the same subject, but independently of each other. It occurs at gtp as well, but if you use the “p” word loosely, Bluto will burn your ass, as he has mine, and rightfully so.

Some people misplace their loyalty for Hale against Emerson even though Hale recommmended him to take his place. It’s fine to miss a good writer, but don’t denigrate the one who follows simply because he isn’t that person. That’s reserved for CFB Head Coaches.

Simply reporting/presenting of facts and stories isn’t why people miss Hale/complain about Emerson. I think there’s a difference between “loyalty” and specific performance – we are all loyal to UGA sites because they give us an outlet for UGA news. Yes, Emerson is a good writer and gives good stories during the offseason to fill the time. But for me personally, during the season, when I wanted analysis and insight, he doesn’t give me anything extra I’m getting from any other blog or paper. Its not denigration, its a perception that he mails it in in a way that Hale didn’t. But your mileage may vary of course.

There’s nothing terribly wrong with Seth Emerson. He’s OK. Just OK. His greatest sin is that he is not David Hale. Hale was a hard act to follow. For that reason, Emerson catches grief which he probably doesn’t deserve.

Having said that, do I wish Hale was back covering the Dawgs the way he used to? Hell yeah.

An aside, we keep talking about Macon guys. When was the last time the big boy in the market had the best beat reporter? Ching, Hale, Kendall, Odum, Emerson, even Pascall up in Chatanooga. Schlabach was good, but he had editorial limitations, and I still prefered Macon/others. When was the last time that rag from the big city didn’t have several smaller outfits with better beat reporters for UGA?

As a political blogger who had to replace a Legend (who also set the unfortunate standard of twelve posts a day), I empathize with Seth. Emerson is IMHO an excellent sports reporter. But there are few MSM sports WRITERS who can match Hale.

BTW, meant to give an amen to Bulldog Joe’s comparison of Tallahassee and Athens. Every time I’ve been to the former, it’s been a hassle. Stayed once at a Doubletree there, and they didn’t even have any chocolate chip cookies.

I agree with many on here. Emerson’s a good writer that gets a bad wrap because Hale had built up such a cult following. I enjoy the mailbag and think he works hard to keep up with some great beat writers that we’re fortunate to have so many of. A guy shouldn’t be regarded as bad at his job just because he has a different style, just like we shouldn’t stop coming to GTP just because the Senator has a potty mouth. :)

Another point to make is that as much as we enjoyed Hale’s style, we also benefited that he was in a position that allowed him to create lots of ways to reach us that are outside the Macon area. For instance, the original blog site. His bosses didn’t get in the way of his creativity. He did much of the same for his yankee gig, from what I can tell. For the Noles sake, I hope ESPN stays out of his kitchen as well.

I wonder at times, if UGA courts some journalists, by feeding them inside info, and best interviews/seats/etc., in exchange for sunny writing about UGA. Emerson seems to be their No. 1 go to guy when they need an outside journalists. To keep that position, he has leave objectivity at the door. It hurts his street cred, and makes for boring articles. Even homer Larry Muson was often a pessimist.

Bloviation for the Dawgnation

Quote Of The Day

“It brings back a great Bulldog running back in Thomas who has NFL playing experience and has had success as a college coach at multiple schools. He also inherits a position that has been built to an elite level by Bryan. And it gives Bryan the opportunity to return to coaching the position he played and the one where he cut his teeth serving as a graduate assistant under wide receiver coach John Eason here at UGA. It also provides him with a new experience as a passing game coordinator.” -- Mark Richt, AB-H, 2/16/15